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Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346

7th Asian-Pacific Conference on Aerospace Technology and Science, 7th APCATS 2013
Effect of Vortex Generator on Lateral and Directional
Aerodynamic Characteristics at Medium Angle of Attack
Y. K. Wanga,*, S. Oua, X. Y. Denga, J. Wena
a
Ministry-of-Education Key Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics, BeiHang University, Beijing 100191, China

Abstract

A numerical computational investigation of applying vortex generator to conventional figuration aircraft for directional
stability improvement at medium angle of attack was conducted in this article.Results showed that vortex generator can put off
the critical angle of directional instability from 22to 29, in addition, vortex generator also had a very little influence on the
lateral aerodynamic characteristic. The flowfield was simulated under the condition of 4 angle of sideslip, Mach number of
0.0882, and Reynolds number of 0.466 million.

2013The
2013 Authors.Published
The Authors. PublishedbybyElsevier
Elsevier Ltd.
Ltd.
Selection
Selection and peer-reviewunder
andpeer-review under responsibility
responsibility of National
of the theNational Chiao
Chiao TungTung University.
University

Keywords: vortex generator, lateral stability, directional stability, medium attack angle, aerodynamic characteristics

Nomenclature
CP Surface pressure coefficient, (P-P)/qo
2S
Cy Sectional side force coefficient, 1 C p sin T dT
2 0
Cl Rolling moment coefficient
Cn Yawing moment coefficient
wC n
C nE Yawing moment derivative,
wE
Angle of attack ()
Angle of side slip ()
J Circumferential angle()

* Corresponding author. Tel: (+86) 010-82317524.

E-mail address:[email protected]

1877-7058 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the National Chiao Tung University
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2013.12.033
 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346 339

x Cartesian coordinate

1. Introduction

For the conventional configuration aircraft, the efficiency of directional control rapidly decreases with the
increase of angle of attack. According to the investigation of literature, there are two main reasons.
Firstly, the efficiency of vertical tail rapidly declines with the angle of attack increasing. The main reason is
that the vertical tail is merged by the upstream separated flow of fuselage and wing. Therefore, the vertical tail
cannot provide the required yawing moment to maintain its directional stability. Secondly, the investigation also
shows that there is a pair of asymmetric vortexes around its forebody for the conventional configuration aircraft
when the angle of attack exceeds 30[1-2], and these asymmetric vortexes induce a significant amount of side
force, which causes directional instability. In order to eliminate the side force, a lot of methods are put forward to
control the forebody asymmetric vortex, e.g. forebody strake [3], forebody blowing [4] and forebody disturbance
[5]. By changing the state of the asymmetric vortex, the side force is eliminated or used artificially to improve the
directional aerodynamic characteristic. However, there is also a great number of aircrafts which become
directional instable at medium angle of attack, which is always in the range of 20to 30, at this moment, there is
no forebody asymmetric vortex to control. Therefore, the conventional methods are useless.
Vortex generator is widely used in the field of aerospace, fluid machinery, automobile and shipping. However,
vortex generator is only applied as an engineering method without any explanation for the flow mechanism.In this
article, vortex generator is adopted to improve the directional stability of conventional aircraft. It can generate
strong vortex which can spread energy to the downstream flowfield.Therefore, vortex generator is used to induce
a favorable interference with the downstream flowfield in this article. In addition, the flow mechanism has also
been studied.

2. Numerical Computational Method and Model

In thisarticle, the study is conducted by solving the three-dimensional, impressible and steady Navier-Stokes
equations, and all the present study make attempt to simulate the flight on the condition of 4 angle of sideslip, a
Mach number of 0.0882, and Reynolds number of 0.466 million.
The standard k  H turbulent model is used in the numerical computational investigation;in addition, the
implicit and second-order upwind solver is adopted.
There are two computational models, as shown in Fig.1. Model 1 is a conventional figuration aircraft with
wings, horizontal tail, vertical tail, fin and fuselage. Model 2 is created by mounting a vortex generator on the
forebody of Model 1. The location and geometry detail of vortex generator are shown as Fig.2 and Fig.3. L
represents the length of fuselage.

Y Y

X X

(a) (b)

Fig.1 Computational models of conventional configuration aircraft, (a) Model 1and (b) Model 2
340 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346

180
A
90 270
60
0.05L

A 0
Section A-A
Fig.2 Location detail of vortex generator

0.09L

0.02L
0.006L

Fig3. Geometry detail of vortex generator

3. Boundary Conditions

In the simulated flowfield, the incoming and outgoing flow boundariesare respectively placed at 2 and 2.8
aircraft lengths upstream and downstream from the aircraft apex. In the vertical direction, the computational
domain spanned 10mean aerodynamic chords. In the lateral space, the outer boundary is placed at 6 half spans
from the plane of symmetry.All these boundaries are adopted pressure far-field condition, and the no-slip wall
boundary condition is adopted on the surface of the aircraft.

4. Computational Method Validation

The numerical computational method in this article is verified by comparing the simulation result of Model 1
with the experimental data. It can be concluded from Fig.4 that the aircraft becomes directional instable at 22
angle of attack, which matches experimental result well. Therefore, conclusion can be drawn that the
computational method used in this article is valid and reliable.
 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346 341

0.003 CnE -EXP

CnE -CFD
0.002

0.001 STABLE

CnE
0.000
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

-0.001 D
UNSTABLE

-0.002

Fig.4 Yawing moment derivative comparison between computational result and experimental data( V 30m / s )

5. Results and Discussions

5.1. Effects of Vortex Generator on Aerodynamic Characteristics

The numerical computational results are presented as follow. It can be concluded from Fig.5 that the critical
attack angle of directional instability is put off from 22to 29when the vortex generator is adopted on model2 and
there is almost no influence on lateral aerodynamics characteristic from the vortex generator, as shown in Fig.6.
In order to investigate the flow mechanism improving the directional instability by vortex generator, we can
compare the contributions to the yawing moment of whole model from different component and analyze flow over
them.
0.0025 CnE of Model 1
CnE of Model 2
0.0020
0.0015
0.0010
0.0005
CnE

0.0000
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
-0.0005
D
-0.0010
-0.0015

Fig.5 The variation of yawing moment derivative with angle of attack( V 30m / s )
342 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346

0.000
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
-0.002
D Cl of Model 1
-0.004 Cl of Model 2

-0.006

Cl
-0.008

-0.010

-0.012

-0.014

Fig.6 The variation of rolling moment with angle of attack( V 30m / s )

5.2. Contribution to Yawing Moment of Different Component of Aircraft

The yawing moments of different components are extracted from the yawing moment of entire aircraft. By
comparing the component yawing moments of Model 1 and Model 2, it can be found that the yawing moment
from fuselage of Model 2 greatly increases when angle of attack exceeds 10compared with that of Model 1 and
maintain a small change with the increasing of attack angle, as shown in Fig.7, however, in Model 1, the yawing
moment of fuselage rapidly decreases when the angle of attack exceeds 10. In addition, the yawing moment of
vertical and fin are almost unchanged. Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that the vortex generator mainly
has an influence on the flowfield around fuselage.
Fuselage of Model 1
Fuselage of Mode 2
0.020 Vertical tail of Model 1
Vertical tail of Model 2
Fin of Mode1
0.015 Fin of Model 2

0.010

0.005

0.000
Cn

0 5 10 15 20 25 30
-0.005 D

-0.010

-0.015

Fig.7 The variation of yawing moments from different component with angle of attack( V 30m / s )

5.3. Effect of Vortex Generator on Flow over Fuselage

Fig.8 gives out distribution of pressure-checking sectionson the fuselage.The pressure distribution of sections is
extracted from the surface of fuselage, and the side force and yawing moment of each section can be obtained by
integrating the pressure distribution along the circumferential angle, the direction of circumferential angle is
defined as shown Fig.2.
 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346 343

By comparing the variation of section side force and yawing moment of each section with angle of attack in
Fig.9 and Fig.10, we can find that there exists obvious influence of vortex generator on flow over section X2, X3
and X4 and little on that over section X1, X5, X6 and X7. From it, we canknow that the side forces of section X2,
X3 and X4 on Model 2 increase compared with that on Model 1, which is beneficialto directional stability of the
aircraft, so does the yawing moment of section X2, X3 and X4.
Fig.11 gives out the pressure distribution over section X2, X3 and X4 at 20angle of attack respectively, the x-
coordinatestands for circumferential angle, which is defined as shown in Fig.2. Along the clockwise direction, the
x-coordinate ranges from 0 to360.
From the pressure distribution over section X2, X3 and X4,it showsthat the vortex generator mainly has a
remarkable influence on flow over the leeward side of section X2 and X3, the pressure of leeward side increases
and the pressure of windward side remains a little change. Therefore, the side force provided by forebody of
fuselage decreases, which results in the yawing moment of aircraft increasing. As a result the directional
instability has been improved and the critical directional instable attack angle has been put off 7 degrees.
The flow detail can also be got from the vorticity field and streamline, as shown in Fig.12 and Fig.13. The
vortices coming from the vortex generators have strong effect of flow over the two sides on section X2 and X3,
and the flow on the leeward side is completely changed, but the flow on the windward side remains a little
difference. This difference between flow over leeward side and windward side on these two sections maybe result
from the angle of sideslip.
In addition, it can also be concluded by comparing Fig.12 and Fig.13 that the vorticity on both sides rapidly
weaken and their locations gradually lift. Therefore, the vortex cant affect the flowfield far away from the vortex
generator, this is the reason thatwhy the flowfieldaround fin and vertical tail almost remain unchanged.
X 7
X 6

X 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 X 5

0 .1 L 0 .1 L 0 .1 L 0 .1 L 0 .1 L

0 .1 L

0 .1 L

Fig.8 The position detail of each section of fuselage

344 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346

0.04
0.02
0.00
x
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
-0.02
-0.04
-0.06

Cy
o
-0.08 Model 2, a =10
o
Model 2, a =15
-0.10 Model 2, a =20
o

-0.12 Model 2, a =24

o

o
Model 2, a =30
-0.14 o
Model 1, a =10
-0.16 Model 1, a =15
o

o
Model 1, a =20
o
Model 1, a =24
o
Model 1, a =30

Fig.9 The variation of side force of each section with angle of attack( V 30m / s )

0.010
0.005
x
0.000
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
-0.005
-0.010 o
Model 1, a =10
-0.015
Cn

o
Model 1, a =15
-0.020 Model 1, a =20
o

o
-0.025 Model 1, a =24
o
Model 1, a =30
-0.030 o
Model 2, a =10
-0.035 Model 2, a =15
o

o
-0.040 Model 2, a =20
o
Model 2, a =24
o
Model 2, a =30

Fig.10 The variation of yawing moment of each section with angle of attack( V 30m / s )

Cp-Model 2 0.8
0.3 Cp-Model 2
Cp-Mode 1 0.6 Cp-Model 1
0.2 0.4

0.1 0.2
J
J 0.0
0.0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Cp

-0.2
Cp

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

-0.1 -0.4
-0.6
-0.2
-0.8
-0.3 -1.0
(a) (b)
 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346 345

0.4
Cp-Model 2
0.2 Cp-Model 1

0.0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
-0.2 J

Cp
-0.4

-0.6

-0.8

(c) -1.0

Fig.11Pressure distributions of section (a)X2, (b)X3 and (c)X4 with the circumferential angle at 20angle of attack( V 30m / s )

x-vorticity x-vorticity
2000 2000
1800 1800
1600 1600
1400 1400
1200 1200
1000 1000
800 800
600 600
400 400
200 200
0 0
-200 -200
Model 1 -400
Model 2 -400
-600
-600
-800 -800
-1000 -1000
-1200 -1200
-1400 -1400
-1600 -1600
-1800 -1800
-2000 -2000

Fig.12 Vorticity field and streamline of section X2 at 20angle of attack( V 30m / s )

x-vorticity x-vorticity
2000 2000
1800 1800
1600 1600
1400 1400
1200 1200
1000 1000
800 800
600 600
400 400
200 200
0 0
-200 -200
-400 -400
Model 1 -600
Model 2 -600
-800 -800
-1000 -1000
-1200 -1200
-1400 -1400
-1600 -1600
-1800 -1800
-2000 -2000

Fig.13 Vorticity field and streamline of section X3 at 20angle of attack( V 30m / s )

346 Y.K. Wang et al. / Procedia Engineering 67 (2013) 338 346

6. Conclusion

Several conclusions can be drawn from the above discussion:

(1)Vortex generators have a noticeable favorable effect on directional aerodynamic characteristic and the
critical directional instable attack angle of this configuration has been put off 7 degrees.
(2)The vortices coming from the vortex generators have strong effect of flow over the two sides on fore
fuselage and especially reduce the flow suction on leeward side obviously. This is the main reason that the yawing
moment of aircraft has been improved and directional instable attack angle is put off.

Acknowledgements

The project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11272035)and Aeronautical
Science Foundation of China(2011ZA51003)and Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher
Education of China (20101102110015).

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